Day of Praise

Thur, 08/24/17, "Day of Praise"

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." - Romans 5:1

I just couldn't do it. I could not swim the length of the pool at the Moose Lodge. 

So I had to take Beginners Swim Lessons at least three times, and I think it was more. 

Looking back, I'm just grateful that my mom didn't do to me what I saw other moms do to their kids when their kids didn't advance to Intermediate Swim Lessons. I saw moms who picked up their kids and threw them in the deep end of the pool and, while the kid was in mid-air, the mom yelled, "Swim!"

My mom just said, "Well, let's try again." 

So we did. We took Beginner's Swim Lessons again. And again. And again. 

And I wasn't going to move on until I passed. Passing Beginners was something that I had to do. No one could do it for me. 

Good thing it's not that way with having peace with God. Jesus can do it for me. Actually, Jesus must do it for me. Unlike Beginners Swim Lessons, which I can eventually get the hang of, there is no way that I myself can ever accomplish having peace with God. 

That's why, in the Nicene Creed which is a summary of the Christian faith from the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D., we confess "for us and for our salvation [Jesus] came down from heaven." Jesus came, and he took on mortal flesh in the womb of Mary to do for us what we couldn't do for ourselves, namely, pay the penalty of our sin, no matter how many times we tried. 

But, upon paying our penalty for sin on the cross, God makes a way for Jesus' accomplishment to become ours. God sends the Holy Spirit to work faith in us, so that, believing in Jesus and his death for us, we receive both Jesus himself to live in us and also his saving work that gets credited to our spiritual account. 

Our debt for sin is paid in full because Jesus paid it in full. And since there's no more debt with God, we can have peace with God. 

This is a really great thing. 

After all, we're not talking about swimming lessons. 

We're talking about God and his goodness toward us through Jesus. 

Forever. 

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." - Romans 5:1

Praise God!